Monday, June 12, 2017

Two Inconvenient Questions Arise from Violent Gunfight Near Moscow

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 12 – The violent
clash between an individual gunman in a village near Moscow and members of the
heavily armed Russian Guard, a clash that claimed the life of the gunman and
left eight others, including four Guardsmen injured, have attracted widespread and
almost ghoulish attention in the Moscow media.

And on the other – and this is a far
more serious worry for the authorities – given how hard it was for the
well-armed Russian Guard to defeat a single gunman, some wonder what would
happen if the forces of order were confronted not by one shooter but by “thousands”?
Could the regime cope? (agonia-ru.com/archives/8548).

But
the first question is one about which far more can be said with certainty, and
Pavel Merzlikin, a Meduza portal journalist, provides some of the evidence one
needs to draw conclusions.

He
notes that Russian Guard officials say that approximately 4.5 million Russians
own guns that they have registered with the authorities and that each on
average owns more than one (tass.ru/opinions/interviews/4138838).But the real numbers of guns in private hands
are far larger, and some owners may now have a veritable arsenal.

One reason for that is that ever
more Russians are not registering their guns with the authorities because the
cost of getting official approval has gone up by an order of magnitude,
according to Igor Shmelyev, head of the Right to Own Guns organization.He says that in fact the number of people
officially allowed to own guns has fallen from 5.2 to 4.5 million (ic.pics.livejournal.com/shmel_99/10098360/87226/87226_original.jpg).

Most Russian gun owners are law
abiding and use their guns either for hunting, target practice or personal
defense, but the fact that ever more of them own the guns without having
official registration is worrisome because it means that those lacking such
registration have already broken the law and thus may be more willing to break
other laws as well.

And some are using guns in the commission
of crimes.According to the Russian
interior ministry, 5,000 crimes in Russia annually involve the use of guns; and
this year, that number is on course to rise to more than 6,000, a 20 percent
jump. In many cases,, the guns involved were not registered (http://tass.ru/proisshestviya/4328907).

An interior ministry expert, Ivan
Solovyev, says that the black market in guns has increased dramatically in
recent years and that is likely to have an impact on crime as well (expert.ru/2016/06/14/oruzhie-stanet-esche-dostupnee/).
He does not say but some of the weapons on this black market are likely
bleeding into Russia from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Consequently, it is not improbable
that crime in Russia will become more violent and that the authorities,
including the Russian Guard, will have to deploy ever more advanced weaponry to
combat it and the challenge to public order and stability that such violence
poses.